24

Misery's Return. He felt nothing at all. He supposed a man who had just cut his hand off in a power saw might feel this same species of nothing as he stood regarding his spouting wrist with dull surprise.

“Yes!” Her face shone like a searchlight. Her powerful hands were clasped between her breasts. “It will be a book just for me, Paul! My payment for nursing you back to health! The one and only copy of the newest Misery book! I'll have something no one else in the world has, no matter how much they might want it! Think of it!”

“Annie, Misery is dead.” But already, incredibly, he was thinking, I could bring her back. The thought filled him with tired revulsion but no real surprise. After all, a man who could drink from a floor-bucket should be capable of a little directed writing.

“No she's not,” Annie replied dreamily. “Even when I was… when I was so mad at you, I knew she wasn't really dead. I knew you couldn't really kill her. Because you're good.”

“Am I?” he said, and looked at the typewriter. It grinned at him. We're going to find out just how good you are, old buddy, it whispered.

“Yes!”

“Annie, I don't know if I can sit in that wheelchair. Last time - “

“Last time it hurt, you bet it did. And it will hurt next time, too. Maybe even a little more. But there will come a day - and it won't be long, either, although it may seem longer to you than it really is - when it hurts a little less. And a little less. And a little less.”

“Annie, will you tell me one thing?”

“Of course, dear!”

“If I write this story for you - “

“Novel! A nice big one like all the others - maybe even bigger!” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Okay - if I write this novel for you, will you let me go when it's done?” For a moment unease slipped cloudily across her face, and then she was looking at him carefully, studiously. “You speak as though I were keeping you prisoner, Paul.” He said nothing, only looked at her.

“I think that by the time you finish, you should be up to the… up to the strain of meeting people again,” she said.

“Is that what you want to hear?”

“That's what I wanted to hear, yes.”

“Well, honestly! I knew writers were supposed to have big egos, but I guess I didn't understand that meant ingratitude, too!” He went on looking at her and after a moment she looked away, impatient and a little flustered.

At last he said: “I'll need all the Misery books, if you've got them, because I don't have my concordance.”

“Of course I have them!” she said. Then: “What's a concordance?”

“It's a loose-leaf binder where I have all my Misery stuff,” he said. “Characters and places, mostly, but cross-indexed three or four different ways. Time-lines. Historical stuff… “ He saw she was barely listening. This was the second time she'd shown not the slightest interest in a trick of the trade that would have held a class of would-be writers spellbound. The reason, he thought, was simplicity itself. Annie Wilkes was the perfect audience, a woman who loved stories without having the slightest interest in the mechanics of making them. She was the embodiment of that Victorian archetype, Constant Reader. She did not want to hear about his concordance and indices because to her Misery and the characters surrounding her were perfectly real. Indices meant nothing to her. If he had spoken of a village census in Little Dunthorpe, she might have shown some interest.

“I'll make sure you get the books. They're a little dog-eared, but that's a sign a book has been well read and well loved, isn't it?”

“Yes,” he said. No need to lie this time. “Yes it is.

“I'm going to study up on book-binding,” she said dreamily. “I'm going to bind Misery's Return myself. Except for my mother's Bible, it will be the only real book I own.”

“That's good,” he said, just to say something. He was feeling a little sick to his stomach.

I'll go out now so you can put on your thinking cap,” she said. “This is exciting! Don't you think so?”

“Yes, Annie. I sure do.”

“I'll be in with some breast of chicken and mashed potatoes and peas for you in half an hour. Even a little Jell-O because you've been such a good boy. And I'll make sure you get your pain medication right on time. You can even have an extra pill in the night if you need it. I want to make sure you get your sleep, because you have to go back to work tomorrow. You'll mend faster when you're working, I'll bet!” She went to the door, paused there for a moment, and then, grotesquely, blew him a kiss.

The door closed behind her. He did not want to look at the typewriter and for awhile resisted, but at last his eyes rolled helplessly toward it. It sat on the bureau, grinning. Looking at it was a little like looking at an instrument of torture - boot, rack, strappado - which is standing inactive, but only for the moment.

I think that by the time you finish, you should be… up to the strain of meeting people again.

Ah, Annie, you were lying to both of us. I knew it, and you did, too. I saw it in your eyes.

The limited vista now opening before him wag extremely unpleasant: six weeks of life which he would spend suffering with his broken bones and renewing his acquaintance with Misery Chastain, nee Carmichael, followed by a hasty interment in the back yard. Or perhaps she would feed his remains to Misery the pig - that would have a certain justice, black and gruesome though it might be.

Then don't do it. Make her mad. She's like a walking bottle of nitroglycerine as it is. Bounce her around a little. Make her explode. Better than lying here suffering.

He tried looking up at the interlocked W's, but all too soon he was looking at the typewriter again. It stood atop the bureau, mute and thick and full of words he did not want to write, grinning with its one missing tooth.

I don't think you believe that, old buddy. I think you want to stay alive even if it does hurt. If it means bringing Misery back for an encore, you'll do it. You'll try, anyway - but first you are going to have to deal with me… and I don't think I like your face.

“Makes us even,” Paul croaked.

This time he tried looking out the window, where fresh snow was falling. Soon enough, however, he was looking at the typewriter again with avid repulsed fascination, not even aware of just when his gaze had shifted.

25

Getting into the chair didn't hurt as much as he had feared, and that was good, because previous experience had shown him that he would hurt plenty afterward.

She set the tray of food down on the bureau, then rolled the wheelchair over to the bed. She helped him to sit up - there was a dull, thudding flare of pain in his pelvic area but it subsided - and then she leaned over, the side of her neck pressing against his shoulder like the neck of a horse. For an instant he could feel the thump of her pulse, and his face twisted in revulsion. Then her right arm was firmly around his back, her left under his buttocks.

“Try not to move from the knees down while I do this,” she said, and then simply slid him into the chair. She did it with the ease of a woman sliding a book into an empty slot in her bookcase. Yes, she was strong. Even in good shape the outcome of a fight between him and Annie would have been in doubt. As he was now it would be like Wally Cox taking on Boom Boom Mancini.

She put the board in front of him, “See how well it fits?” she said, and went to the bureau to get the food.

“Annie?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if you could turn that typewriter around. So it faces the wall.” She frowned. “Why in the world would you want me to do that?” Because I don't want it grinning at me all night.

“Old superstition of mine,” he said. “I always turn my typewriter to the wall before I start writing.” He paused and added: “Every night while I am writing, as a matter of fact.”